When Erven Calder first opened his eyes, the world did not feel new.

It felt wrong. Unfamiliar. Alien.

Too warm and too quiet. An air carrying no iron, no bleach, no static humming of artificial lights. The ceiling not steel or concrete but slanted, imperfect, stone with wooden beams. Not watched by cameras through a glass pane.

Through that crooked glass pane a warm ray of light shone through instead. He instead was watched by inviting hazel eyes from a mother holding him, rocking him side to side singing lullabies in the sweetest tone. She often sobbed and Erven’s skin was soft enough now for him to feel these tears land on his cheek. She cried although Erven failed to understand the troubles of post-partum.

Why is she crying?
I haven’t failed anything yet.

Lyria was her name. Erven learnt it before the local tongue, because his father would say it so frequently – when he brought her water, when he kissed her brow, when he passed his fingers through her brunette hair, when he held her hand as she nursed her strange child with violet eyes.

Erven’s name was soft, its syllables curled like steam from a mug. Nothing akin to “Epsilon”, the digit designated to him in his first life or “King of the Pale Empire” as he was titled in his second.
No, here he was Erven Calder. Son of Lyria and Harold Calder. Nothing more. Nothing less even if he remembered lives before.

In his first weeks, Erven would never cry which gave Lyria and Harold a wave of concern but an even bigger wave of relief and gratitude. Erven rarely caused a fuss, instead he sat observant of all around him, cataloguing, learning. Before long he had learnt to understand his parents’ speech.

His peculiar habits did not stop but Harold decided it was a good thing: an indicator towards intelligence.

They had no idea what the word intelligence meant to their youngest Erven.

Every day, Erven watched the man in the garden—tall, youthful, full of life, but seasoned in combat. That dedicated man was Harold. Erven studied how Harold moved—graceful yet forceful—his polearm carving arcs of flame through the air, sparks trailing with every swing.

“That’s what we call mana, sweetie. Your father’s affinity is fire so he can create flames around his body and his weapons.” Lyria would innocently tell Erven, not knowing he could understand the tongue at this young age of 5 months. Erven would yearn to reply, unfortunately his physical body rendered him incapable.

Erven could already feel the phenomena known as mana; it was everywhere. It was as if the very world -Elarion-, was breathing this mana. The vast land where mana was the fundamentals for every human, dwarf, elf, beastkin or mana beast alike. It alone was the unifying factor.

So different from Erven’s second world where power was not a force such as mana, rather it was simply steel and grit where kings would conquer with the blade and Erven was the sharpest blade.

So different from that hyper modern first world where science ruled, dissecting souls in sterile cages and launching chemical weapons to eradicate any threats.

By six months, Erven had made what he would consider his biggest feat in all three of his lives: Erven could crawl.

Erven reached not for toys but for books to teach himself the script of this world that his mother would so often read to him, unaware of the attention Erven would pay to each and every word.

Lydia would often unlock the mana-lock on the pantry and Erven watched three times before attempting to open it himself, mimicking the gestures his seemingly magical mother.

It didn’t open.

Yet still, it earned a respectable baffled look from Harold. “He’s watching a little too closely,” Harold muttered one evening.
Lyria only chuckled, running her fingers through Erven’s dark hair as she glanced at his vivid violet eyes. “He’s just curious, that’s all.”

Her voice trembles when she looks at me. I think that means she loves me. I don’t know what to do with that either.

Evren’s unfamiliarity to love was manifesting to such a degree even he began to notice.

Each evening after Harold had come in from training, Erven would routinely crawl into the study and sit researching the language until by just 8 months he had mastered every word he’d seen.

The atmosphere consists of 4 core elements: fire, earth, water, wind. Before a mage acquires an affinity in these they can manipulate what is known as raw mana. This is weaker but can still be used in basic mana manipulation.

Erven was addicted, he had a new goal for the short while: he wanted to know everything. Not out of greed, but newfound curiosity.